Online Dating Vs Resume Building (same thing)

I have a friend, Colleen, who was recently dumped. And after a few days of feeling awful and lonely she decided she’s going to jump back on that horse, and signed up for several online dating sites and began working her profile.

I have another friend, Heather, who was laid off- and after a few days of feeling sad and miserable, updated her resume.

In my head- these two girls are having the same story- and I’ve always thought of online dating and job searching as being the same thing. (This may explain my current situation- which I’ll get to in a minute).

Both girls send out white-papers of themselves (profiles or resumes) and both get the same type of response:

Flat out ignored

“Nah. Not interested”

“Will you be my whore?” (Will you work for free)

“Hey! You’re interesting! Let’s talk more!”

Both girls prim and prep and go to meet the person who sent the last sentence. The conversations are really similar where they talk about:

All parties decide it was a great first impression and are willing to give it another go (trial run, 2nd date, whatever). Both are looking for a 1/3 of your life commitment. Both women know that this commitment will require an equal balance of emotion and reasoning to make it work. And both, at some point, become shitty. Something isn’t ideal… Something is unattractive.

At some point, a decision needs to be made: Do you deal? Do you settle? Does the awesome outweigh the suck or not?

I ask this important question because I’ve been resume-building and (because of Colleen) online-dating profile building.

But– I’m restless! I get bored so effin’ easily. I constantly wonder why the hell can’t I be “normal” and why I relate to some psycho like Tyler Durden in THIS scene?

Then a dear friend of mine sent me this:

“For the creative person, what’s going on outside is trivial compared to what is going on inside… Don’t try to change the structure of the outside world hoping that then you’ll be fine, then you’ll be creative and then you’ll be brave. No. First, figure out how to be creative and brave and courageous, and the outside world will change on your behalf.” -Seth Godin

Moral of the story: Letting social norms dictate your life is a terrible idea.